A Voice Apart

Get this: From Strep Throat - To Laryngitis - To Vocal Cord Paralysis... Isn’t that peculiar? More and more, in my practice (in over four decades), I have been hearing about the devastating vocal disorder - Vocal Paresis, also known as Vocal Paralysis. The interesting thing is that a lot of other vocal disorders are usually caused by speaking and/or singing in the wrong (and often aggressive) way. - Vocal Paresis, as well as, (for example) Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD) , quite often have additional reasons for their occurrence. Interestingly enough, I hear a lot about some kind of a virus (or even a simple cold) that had produced vocal paresis affecting one or even both vocal cords. When a person is under a lot of stress, their immune system subsides which means that they become more susceptible to all kinds of infections, colds, and needless to say viruses. Some time ago, a client from Atlanta, Georgia, USA came with one paralyzed vocal cord, which occurred after he experienced a really s...

Evidently not… It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Let’s analyze what has been happening in the last few years and, nevertheless, recently: Majority of our very talented artists had experienced vocal problems in one-way or another. A lot of them had undergone vocal operations: Adele John Mayer Joan Rivers Megan Trainor Sam Smith Roger Daltrey Steven Tyler Keith Urban Michael Buble And that’s to name a few… All of the above-listed people are talented artists, but obviously, the majority of them had been lacking the proper vocal technique; and thus, they ended up having vocal issues (and some of them more serious than others). Could they have avoided the interruption of their professional lives, careers, joy and monetary loss? No doubts they could - They just could have been more attentive to the technical aspects of their craft and not just rely on their talents and love for music. Could you imagine a figure skater trying to jump a triple or quad...

Since 1984, we have been receiving students who really wanted to make it in the music business. And a lot of them did. Many of them got signed with major record labels, as well as, had won many singing competitions including international ones. To name a few, please see below:  Brian Melo - Winner of Canadian Idol 2007  Lukas Rossi - Winner on the CBS TV Show Rockstar: Supernova Alex Norman of illScarlett (Sony BMG Music Canada)  Cindy Gomez - INTERSCOPE Records (Produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics) Trish (Patricia Campbell) - Signed with Capitol | EMI Records Candace Santos - Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Rising Star Contests & the 2008 Young Asian Canadian Idol Brian Pisani of One Second 2 Late (Produced by Greig Nori - Sony BMG) Jake Robertson - Lead Singer of the Any Zen rock band Jesse Dryfhout of Stabilo (Virgin Music Canada) Edwin (Sony Records) Brian Byrne of I Mother Earth (Universal Records) Rob Moratti of Saga (Inside Out Records) Nicole Hughes of Min...

Nevertheless, I have been getting a lot of calls regarding the non-surgical voice repair program. The people who are inquiring are usually very desperate and very emotional, which is quite understandable. They're pleading for help and, at the glance, appear that they would do anything that would be required from them; would drop everything and anything (including their vocal and voice performances) and would rush to Toronto to fix their voices in order to continue their performances, recordings and whichever other careers which are directly connected to their voices' health and their overall well being. Some of them are diagnosed, some of them not yet, and some of them are hiding their diagnosis (to my dismay...) But what is more surprising is that a lot of them are till singing (more like faking) and thus being in denial, while at the same time, their singing (and voices in general) and quite compromised! Go figure! They are actually singing on their nodules and p...

"Italy's Singing Nun Channels Madonna, Releases 'Like a Virgin' Cover" As I mentioned before, providing vocal services of all sorts for over four decades, I think I’ve seen it all and pretty much dealt with it all. However, the title (which speaks for itself) is even for me, still remains to be quite outrageous.  First of all, you my reader, may ask: 'What I mean by vocal “virginity”'?  To answer that question with more clarity, I will give you an example of a dancer who desperately wants to perform on stage, but has, so to speak, bad feet (flat feet with no arch), and also very tight hips, whereby the perfect turn out of the dancer’s body is very hard to achieve.  The above two components are crucial to the dance profession, even on an amateur or semi-professional level, let alone on a professional level. Similarly, I am receiving potential students with, at the glance, a very small mouth opening, very tight throats and quite dispropo...